Technology and Science21 August, 20262 min read
Trump Administration Moves To Rescind 2001 Roadless Rule Covering 45 Million Acres
This article is an automated aggregation of coverage from news outlets. Our editorials offer in-depth analysis curated by the NewsCord team.
Trump administration proposes repealing the Roadless Rule, opening roughly 45 million acres of national forests. Rule repeal would permit road construction, logging, and mining across protected roadless areas.
7 outlets told this the same way.
Roadless Rule rollback
The Trump administration moved to rescind the 2001 “Roadless Rule,” a policy that “covers 45 million acres of federal lands” and has “established broad prohibitions on road construction and timber harvesting on nearly 45 million acres of National Forest System lands.”
“The ‘Roadless Rule’ covers 45 million acres of federal lands.”
The USDA, which oversees the U.S. Forest Service, filed the proposed rule and corresponding draft environmental impact statement in the Federal Register on Tuesday, and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said, “Our forests can’t afford another decade of inaction.”
Rollins argued that “For too long, outdated restrictions have kept tens of millions of forested acres off-limits to the very treatments that improve forest health and reduce wildfire risk,” while Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz said, “Active forest management is not an option. It’s essential.”
The proposal, as described in the coverage, would shift more decision-making to local forest managers and would not itself authorize road construction or logging projects, even as it would remove the prohibitions if repealed as proposed.
Wildlife and water stakes
Opponents of the repeal warned that rescinding the Roadless Area Conservation Rule would open intact national forests to road-building and timber harvest, threatening wildlife and water resources. Defenders of Wildlife director Vera Smith said, “The Roadless Rule was hands-down one of the Forest Service’s best ideas — rescinding it is without question one of its worst,” while Keats Conley argued in the same release that “For a quarter-century, it has safeguarded our last best wild places.”
The Defenders of Wildlife statement also said roadless areas “make up just 2% of land in the lower 48 states yet provide habitat for 57% of the country's vulnerable terrestrial species.” In California, American Rivers national river protection director John Zablocki said, “In California, there are 9,667 miles of rivers that cross roadless areas without records,” and he added that “more than 1,100 watersheds” and “10.9 million people” obtain water from these areas.
Comment period and legal fight
The proposal is open to public comment for a limited period, with the Defenders of Wildlife release saying “The American people have until midnight on September 21 to comment on the DEIS,” while El Observador Online reported the USDA is soliciting public comment “from now until September 19.” Environment America Research & Policy Center’s Great Outdoors Campaign director Ellen Montgomery urged submissions over the comment window, saying, “We call on all Americans to submit public comments over the next 30 days.”
The stakes extend beyond the comment period, as Ars Technica described a congressional effort to change the law through an amendment to the Wildfire Prevention Act that would “both remove the Roadless Rule and prevent the US Forest Service from reinstituting it in the future.” Ars Technica also framed the policy’s geographic footprint by stating the rule applies to “over 58 million acres across the country,” and it noted that it excludes Idaho and Colorado, which have their own state-specific roadless rules.